MADD Represents Modern-Day McCarthyism
Henry Srebrnik, Calgary Herald
In every society, there is a crime considered beyond the pale. Today, Canada's main crusade is against drunk driving, thanks to the convergence of two phenomena: technology and an important pressure group.
When Robert Borkenstein invented the breathalyzer in 1954, it provided law enforcement with a test providing immediate results to determine an individual's alcohol concentration.
The organization that has taken advantage of this is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, perhaps the most influential interest group in the country. They have become ideological neo-prohibitionists.
That's usually the case with such movements, be-cause extremists and fanatics end up calling the shots. (Do I have to mention that I'm opposed to drunk driving and have never engaged in this practice?)
The breathalyzer has provided law enforcement with a non-invasive test providing immediate results to determine an individual's alcohol concentration at the time of testing.
For instance, a blood-alcohol content of 0.10 means that 0.10 (one 10th of one per cent) of a person's blood, by volume, is alcohol. In Canada, the legal limit is 0.08. So now we have the equivalent of fingerprints or DNA - incontrovertible scientific evidence.
The organization behind much of this new "war against the demon rum" is MADD, founded in 1980 in California by Candice Lighter after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver.
In Canada, local activities are carried out by MADD chapters in approximately 100 communities across the country.
MADD has now become neo-prohibitionist. This refers to the belief that the influence of alcohol should be reduced through laws and policies that further restrict the sale and possession of alcohol to reduce consumption.
In other words, they have become the modern version of an old Protestant-based organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the purpose of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was to create a "sober and pure world" by abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity. The group was instrumental in bringing about prohibition in the United States in 1919.
The law resulted in the criminalization of producers, suppliers, transporters and consumers of alcohol and allowed gangsters like Al Capone to flourish. It was repealed in 1933.
In 1885, Letitia Youmans founded the Canadian arm of the organization. In 1898, a federal referendum on prohibition was held, receiving 51.3 per cent for and 48.7 per cent against prohibition.
Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier chose not to move forward. As a result, Canadian prohibition was instead enacted through laws passed by individual provinces during the first 20 years of the 20th century. However, between 1920 and 1925, five provinces voted to repeal prohibition - though Prince Edward Is-land stayed dry until 1948.
But we now have a wave of neo-prohibitionism. While the Criminal Code sets the legal limit of alcohol in the blood at .08, most provinces have created a le-gal grey area, where drivers with a blood-alcohol level above .05 can be fined or lose their licence.
In Ontario, for example, drivers with a level between .05 and .08 face a three-day roadside suspension the first time they're caught, which increases to one month for people who break the rules a third time. Alberta has recently passed a similar bill.
Such laws, which allow police to make roadside stops and test people at random - even those who do not appear inebriated - will make it almost impossible to have more than a glass of wine at a party or restaurant. Who needs the risk? We don't carry breath-alyzers around with us, so why take chances?
Let's look at this whole issue through the prism of previous crusades. McCarthyism, like MADD, identified a real evil, in the one case, communism, in the other, excessive use of alcohol. But both eventually went too far.
It was one thing during the Cold War to expose a Soviet agent or spy, another to fire from a job some movie actor or teacher who had long ago belonged to a communist front group. There were no degrees of culpability. Informing on people was encouraged. And many a target com-mitted suicide or ended up working as a janitor or clerk for the rest of his or her life.
Today, we no longer distinguish between a reckless inebriated lout barrelling down a major thoroughfare at two o'clock in the morning and crashing into a tree, and someone who had slightly more to drink in a restaurant than is legal, and backed into a parked car in a shopping centre lot at 6: 30 in the evening.
Both are named and shamed and stand to lose their jobs. Both may spend time in jail. Common sense has disappeared.
Henry Srebrnik, who hardly ever drinks alcohol, is a professor of political studies at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. He previously taught at the University of Calgary.
When Robert Borkenstein invented the breathalyzer in 1954, it provided law enforcement with a test providing immediate results to determine an individual's alcohol concentration.
The organization that has taken advantage of this is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, perhaps the most influential interest group in the country. They have become ideological neo-prohibitionists.
That's usually the case with such movements, be-cause extremists and fanatics end up calling the shots. (Do I have to mention that I'm opposed to drunk driving and have never engaged in this practice?)
The breathalyzer has provided law enforcement with a non-invasive test providing immediate results to determine an individual's alcohol concentration at the time of testing.
For instance, a blood-alcohol content of 0.10 means that 0.10 (one 10th of one per cent) of a person's blood, by volume, is alcohol. In Canada, the legal limit is 0.08. So now we have the equivalent of fingerprints or DNA - incontrovertible scientific evidence.
The organization behind much of this new "war against the demon rum" is MADD, founded in 1980 in California by Candice Lighter after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver.
In Canada, local activities are carried out by MADD chapters in approximately 100 communities across the country.
MADD has now become neo-prohibitionist. This refers to the belief that the influence of alcohol should be reduced through laws and policies that further restrict the sale and possession of alcohol to reduce consumption.
In other words, they have become the modern version of an old Protestant-based organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the purpose of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was to create a "sober and pure world" by abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity. The group was instrumental in bringing about prohibition in the United States in 1919.
The law resulted in the criminalization of producers, suppliers, transporters and consumers of alcohol and allowed gangsters like Al Capone to flourish. It was repealed in 1933.
In 1885, Letitia Youmans founded the Canadian arm of the organization. In 1898, a federal referendum on prohibition was held, receiving 51.3 per cent for and 48.7 per cent against prohibition.
Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier chose not to move forward. As a result, Canadian prohibition was instead enacted through laws passed by individual provinces during the first 20 years of the 20th century. However, between 1920 and 1925, five provinces voted to repeal prohibition - though Prince Edward Is-land stayed dry until 1948.
But we now have a wave of neo-prohibitionism. While the Criminal Code sets the legal limit of alcohol in the blood at .08, most provinces have created a le-gal grey area, where drivers with a blood-alcohol level above .05 can be fined or lose their licence.
In Ontario, for example, drivers with a level between .05 and .08 face a three-day roadside suspension the first time they're caught, which increases to one month for people who break the rules a third time. Alberta has recently passed a similar bill.
Such laws, which allow police to make roadside stops and test people at random - even those who do not appear inebriated - will make it almost impossible to have more than a glass of wine at a party or restaurant. Who needs the risk? We don't carry breath-alyzers around with us, so why take chances?
Let's look at this whole issue through the prism of previous crusades. McCarthyism, like MADD, identified a real evil, in the one case, communism, in the other, excessive use of alcohol. But both eventually went too far.
It was one thing during the Cold War to expose a Soviet agent or spy, another to fire from a job some movie actor or teacher who had long ago belonged to a communist front group. There were no degrees of culpability. Informing on people was encouraged. And many a target com-mitted suicide or ended up working as a janitor or clerk for the rest of his or her life.
Today, we no longer distinguish between a reckless inebriated lout barrelling down a major thoroughfare at two o'clock in the morning and crashing into a tree, and someone who had slightly more to drink in a restaurant than is legal, and backed into a parked car in a shopping centre lot at 6: 30 in the evening.
Both are named and shamed and stand to lose their jobs. Both may spend time in jail. Common sense has disappeared.
Henry Srebrnik, who hardly ever drinks alcohol, is a professor of political studies at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. He previously taught at the University of Calgary.